Storrnclouds over Berlin

Tony Geraghty

Berlin Opposite the State Opera House in East Berlin, pink faced guardsmen goose-step to their posts, white gloves clutching rifles, plastic helmets undulating to the rhythm of jackboots. Up the road in one direction lies a miserable, overgrown mound above the flooded remains of Hitler's bunker; equally near, westward, the Wall.

The clock seems to have stopped in this fragmented capital thirty-three years ago, and the city remains catatonic and timeless as if under the spell of some Wagnerian fairy. But West Berlin, like one of its numerous transvestites, is undergoing yet another identity crisis. The immediate issue is the apparently mundane matter of electing MPs to the European Parliament later this year. To the Russians, who regard such a move as a blatant breach of existing agreements, it is political brinkmanship.

After years of conflict, starting with the Berlin airlift, whose thirtieth anniversary occurs this years, the four wartime allies buried their differences in 1971. The agreement of that year reaffirmed that West Berlin was not part of West Germany. In exchange, West Berliners were allowed into the eastern sector for the first time for six years. The arrangement now even benefits hundreds of Turkish gastarbeiter who occupy cheap flats in the east (collecting a visa each day) and work in the western sector. West Berlin was also permitted to increase cultural and economic links with West Germany, but political affiliation was considered out of the question.

In spite of this, the West Berlin Chamber of Deputies, operating under the ultimate control of the French, British and American military government, nominates members to the Bonn Bundestag and that body, in turn, appoints two of them to the European parliament. When direct elections take place elsewhere, the Berlin members will be nominated by the Berlin chamber. But since West Berlin is not part of West Germany, which state will they represent? Is West Berlin to become West Europe's first colony?

The question perplexes western spokesmen who tend to reply, with a certain vagueness: 'That's where you get into the "theology". We consider Berlin to be part of the application of the European Community, which is not to say it is a constituent part of it.'

The western military government, having met ambiguously Soviet objections to the direct election of Berliners to the new parliament, is gambling that further Russian protests will prove no more than a formality. If they are wrong, Berlin could be

driven back into the worst days of the cold war. At best, the decision adds to the Soviet stockpile of political issues to be dusted down and used when expedient.

The prognosis for 1978 is not good. A few months ago Moscow Radio announced that any violation of the 1971 agreement could produce 'unpleasant results' for West Berliners. After that, in addition to formal protest notes, some extraordinary episodes followed. In November the European Parliament's president, Emilio Colombo, visited the city. His car was almost forced to a halt by a Soviet military vehicle, which expertly gatecrashed the VIP convoy.

Next day, the cat and mouse game continued. Soviet cars appeared to be waiting for Colombo's departure from a lunch. This time it was the Russians who were hemmed in, by British military police vehicles whose drivers, having blocked the Russian exit, crossed the street to study with exquisite care the merits of a local ice cream van, until Colombo was safely out of sight.

More harassment is expected when the European elections take place and, not surprisingly, uncertainty pervades the comments of western analysts in Berlin. An American says: 'They won't go to the brink of war but, if they ever do, it won't be on this issue.' But expert, if unofficial, British opinion is that 'this is the biggest issue over Berlin since the 1971 agreement. If the Russians stopped this link with the European Parliament, Berlin would be cut off from the mainstream of western develop ment at a stroke and left as an island outside Europe. Berliners would just quietly disappear and go elsewhere.'

That is happening already. The basic insecurity of living under military government 140 miles behind the Iron Curtain in a western, but non-Nato city state, which could be overrun within hours by 100,000 enemy troops, has already frightened people away.

The emigrants leave behind two irreconcilable views of West Berlin. One is that of a gerontocracy in which 25 per cent of the two million people are aged over sixty-five and which needs a West German subsidy of V million a year to stay solvent. The other claims an economic miracle in the city, whose products include 50 per cent of the contraceptive pills consumed in Britain.

In Berlin everything becomes a febrile political issue, from the rabbits which have discovered an ecological niche in the frontier zone, six inches beyond the point at which tethered guard dogs can bite, to Queen Nefertiti's head. Until 1939 this ancient Egyptian artefact was housed in a museum in what is now East Berlin. It is. now in the West. The East wants it back. The West replies that when it was removed, the East did not exist and has no title to it.

Everything, including freedom, is still for sale on a grey market. Entrepreneurs of the escape industry flourish, but only to assist with expertly forged papers those in the East wealthy enough to guarantee the £10,000 per head required. Escapers who are on the poverty line must be potential Houdinis. One girl who succeeded last year got inside two suitcases which she had strapped together after carving a matching hole in each. A friend loaded the suitcases on to a westbound train. Separately, neither case would have been large enough for her.

For the West, Berlin has become an increasingly valuable intelligence-gathering centre from which is pointed a forest of exotic aerials, and from which military 'flag' patrols are sent over the border under the four-power arrangements. 'Sometimes,' a British army driver confides, 'it does get a bit naughty when we get near their tanks and take the cameras out. They don't like it and throw hessian over our patrol car. We sweat it out until they get tired, then carry on as before.' The arrangement also suits the East Germans, for West Berlin serves the same purpose as Hong Kong does for mainland China.

Those who like the situation least are the Berliners themselves. Neither the bizarre cabarets of the West's KurfurstendamM (`Eddy Dorrino, Sex Akrobatik' appears to be female but you can never be quite sure) nor the propaganda-burdened art centres of the East deodorise what everyone lives with, every day, in Europe's most edgy city. Only innocent visitors ask the ultimately indelicate question, 'Wouldn't you be surrounded if there were trouble?' In this case it is an American who replies, 'We already are • . Only here, there's no seventh Cavalry.'